Open document standards to be obligatory for state information

The Norwegian Government has decided that all information on state-operated web sites should be accessible in the open document formats HTML, PDF or ODF. This means an end to the time when public documents are published in closed formats only.

The mandate set out by Norway's Ministry of Government Administration and Reform and will come into effect in 2009. Heidi Grande Røys, Norway's IT minister, claimed that the decision would improve the competition between suppliers of office applications. "'Everybody should have equal access to public information," she said. "From 2009 citizens will be able to choose which software to use in order to access public information." Please visit the Norwegian Government's website for more information.

Adobe Systems release in early 2007 their full Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.7 specification to ANSI and AIIM for the purpose of publishing it as an ISO standard, and I expect the PDF format to become ISO/DIS 32000 in 2008.

By Atle Skjekkeland